November Component of the Month Reveal

The lovely and talented Lesley Watt was the hostess for the November component of the month challenge. And it was definitely a challenge! I adore Lesley's work, and when she posted photos of the component of the month, I was practically salivating. I already had a design in mind (a stacked ring). Then it came in the mail. And my design plan was discarded. Because this thing is huge!

I wish I had taken a photo of me holding it before I started designing with it, but totally spaced it. I received the snowflake like the one in the top right corner of the photo. I don't have a ruler handy, but Lesley states these are 35 mm, which is almost 1.5″ for us metric challenged types.

So I decided on a cuff like thing. I started with this gorgeous yarn:

And I knit a rectangle using large-ish needles…maybe size 15 US. I chose this particular color because it makes me think of a dramatic night sky.

Then wearing gloves and using super hot tap water, I felted and then blocked the rectangle:

While this dried, I made several attempts at getting glass to bend to my will. However, it was not cooperating. Eventually I did manage something halfway acceptable, which I stacked on top of the snowflake component. Using fireline, I sewed the stack along with a small bronze faceted bead to the rectangle of fabric.

In my mind, this piece is flexible. Meaning, I wanted it to be a cuff thing or a pendant. To achieve this and not look stupid, I made a coil of wire, pulled the coils apart, and threaded the coil onto both ends of the felt.

I created three lengths of 2 in 2 chain using bronze jump rings. There are several reasons for this. The first was that I don't own ready made bronze chain. Second, I wanted the chain to be heavy to overcome the weight of the stacked beads. Third, I needed three lengths so the cuff didn't go wonky while wearing it.

Here's my issue…I am not near my studio. If I was, I would have created a handcrafted bronze hook for both ends of all 3 chains so they can easily be added and removed. I also would have given the links and coil a light heat treatment to bring out more color in the bronze.

In addition to wanting the piece to be flexible, I also want it to have a sprinkling of seed beads for a bit of sparkle. After trying out several different colors, I stuck with bronze colored beads because using something else either didn't have enough contrast with the fiber, or looked too busy. However, that part is taking this girl forEVER since I am not particularly handy with sewing or seed beads. The plan is to have lots of seeds closer to the component, and getting less dense further out.

So that's it for now. If this blog post looks wonky, I apologize. I'm trying out a new app on my iPad to write this.

Make sure you visit the other blog participants. The list is located at Art Jewelry Elements.

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